


Vows to Keep

by via_ostiense



Category: Ugetsu Monogatari | Tales of Moonlight and Rain
Genre: Gen, chain_of_fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-13
Updated: 2005-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/via_ostiense/pseuds/via_ostiense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>chain_of_fics, prompt "The next morning, he sat himself down before brush and ink, and wrote, "Your heart turns every day into a memory of summer," before departing for home."</p><p>Fic of "The Chrysanthemum Vow" (story summary here: http://via-ostiense.dreamwidth.org/32060.html?#cutid1)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vows to Keep

The next evening, he sat himself down before brush and ink, and wrote, "Your heart turns every day into a memory of summer," before departing for home.

 _A vow is kept when it is spoken._

 _A pledge between brothers is stronger than the bonds between a husband and his wife._

Samon would never see the words, but perhaps he would have time to tell him tonight. Before the inexorable pull that he could feel even now dragged him away; barely past moonrise, it tugged and whispered of fate and the natural balance of the world. Samon had been the summer in truth, warming each day with earnest love and passion, but summer must inevitably pass and give way to fall.

 _What binds a fool to his body?_

 _A promise._

As he left, Akana did not look back. He looked forward and counted the  _ri_  as they fell away, counting down because he was returning home.

 _The moon finds a resting place in the ocean's waves - or is it a meadow, waving softly in the night?_

His senses were dull and he could hardly tell whether he wandered through the fields outside Kyoto or above an ocean. A thousand stars, gleaming in the sky, turned the fields into silver waves as the wind rippled through them; he could not feel the breeze.

The hours passed as he sped through the night, marvelling how the territory vanished before his feet, much more quickly than it had on the journey to Izumo. Barely quickly enough, though, and he hastened his step. There was a vow to keep and the ninth day of the Ninth Month was passing away.

 _Mountains, tilt away so that the moon cannot hide itself -  
Lovers have trysts to leave,  
But wanderers have vows to keep._

He watched the moon instead of the ground before him, watched it slip down past the rim of the mountains while he traveled.

As the sky lightened with the grey of false dawn, he was slipping away and fighting to stay conscious when a lightning-split tree jarred him back to himself.

 _The sight of an ugly tree, blasted by lightning and unfit for firewood, is welcome when it marks a home._

The sun had not risen yet and the ninth day of the Ninth Month had not passed before his return. Fighting the urge to vanish, to move on, he slowly stepped forward. The door was open, the food was laid out by the fire, the sake was waiting to be poured.

 _What binds a fool to his body?_

 _A promise._

 _A pledge between brothers is stronger than the bonds between a husband and his wife._

"Brother, I am home, and it is the day of the Chrysanthemum Festival."


End file.
